Buyer kept both the item and the refund – no seller protection and no clear response from eBay

[flamingo1975]

Hi everyone,

I hope someone here can help or share similar experience, because I’m completely stuck, and eBay Customer Service keeps replying with the same copy-paste answers. I sold a set of electronic parts worth several thousand pounds, all clearly marked with unique MAC addresses and serial numbers. After a while, the buyer opened a return case claiming the items were “not as described.” However, the photos the buyer uploaded to eBay show completely different parts – different markings, different MAC addresses. They are not the same items that I sold and shipped. When I pointed this out and showed him the original auction photos, he immediately stopped responding and cut off all communication. The buyer never provided any details or address so that I could generate a return label. Even worse, eBay’s system gave me no option to create or upload a label manually. A few days later, eBay closed the case in the buyer’s favour and took the money from my account, even though the buyer never returned anything and still has all the items. Now I’m left with no goods and no money, while the buyer has both. On top of that, I’ve received messages from different eBay agents giving conflicting information – some said the case was on hold, others that it was already closed, and a few messages seemed to be about completely different users. Every response I got looked like a template, with no real attention to the facts I provided. So my question is simple:

What can a seller do if a buyer uploads photos of different items, stops communicating, and eBay still automatically refunds them? Is there any real seller protection left, or has everything become a fully automated system with no human review? Any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[tobiasd4]

When buyer opened not as described case, you should have issued ebay returns label through case & only refunded when item returned.

Because you didn't do this, buyer keeps item & refund.

You could have tried to appeal to ebay AFTER return of item.

[flamingo1975]

Thanks for your reply, but I think you might have misunderstood my situation. The buyer completely stopped communicating with me right after I proved that the photos he uploaded were of different items – not the ones I actually sold. After that, he never replied, never gave me any address or return info, and there was no way in eBay’s system to create or send a return label without those details. So I literally had no way to send anything or get the item back. Now the buyer has both the items (worth several thousand pounds) and the refund, and I’m left with nothing. It’s not that I didn’t send a return label – I simply couldn’t, because the buyer disappeared and eBay didn’t give me any other option. What would you do in this situation?

[**peaseblossom**]

When buyers open a return they automatically receive a return postage label from ebay when the seller accepts the case.  

If the buyer is in the UK your best bet now is to use money claim online (previously small claims court):
https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

Best of luck.

[flamingo1975]

Just to clarify — everything in my auction was exactly as described. The buyer received the correct items, but later uploaded photos of completely different parts, which are not the same ones I sold. It looks like the buyer swapped the items and used this as a way to get both the money and the equipment. Everything was shown clearly in my original photos and description, and there was no reason for a return. This situation feels like a clear case of abuse of the eBay Money Back Guarantee, where the buyer took advantage of the system to keep everything.

[jckl1957]

Whenever members ask in the forum what they should do where a buyer has requested a return, has supplied photos of a different item, and seems to be setting up a scam where they will return a product that the seller did not send to them, the advice is always the same.

Accept the return.

Provide a label.

Get the item back.

Once you have the item back, you can (should) report the buyer to Action Fraud and then, with the Action Fraud reference, you can contact Ebay, report the buyer and ask Ebay to step in on your behalf.

When a return is opened, your only options are to refund in full, provide a label (Ebay send this - you don't need the buyer's address and in any case the label needs to be addressed to you) or communicate with the buyer.

if you don't provide a label promptly, the buyer can then ask Ebay to step in.  Once that happens, Ebay's normal procedure is to refund the buyer and tell them to keep the item.

You can appeal to Ebay and ask them to look at the photos the buyer supplied but your position is weaker and worse than if you had accepted the return, provided a label and got the (wrong) item back.

If you appeal to Ebay (see link) and that fails, then your next step would have to be legal action.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/managing-returns-refunds/appeal-outcome-case-seller?id=4369&st=3...

[**peaseblossom**]

I understand that and it happens not often but regularly.   The same thing happened to me.   If someone deliberately sets out to scam a seller on ebay there is virtually no way of stopping them.    eBay do tend to side with buyers.   Look into using money claim online.   

[red_magpie]

What would you do in this situation?

I would look at any possibility of appealing, but realistically would fear that  there is little or no chance of getting any meaningful help from ebay.

There are numerous ways in which a buyer can get to keep both the item and the refund. Sellers sometimes refund straight away, and trust the buyer to return the item. Or the most common is where eBay requires a seller to refund for non-delivery, and the buyer keeps the item as well when it arrives.

eBay gives sellers no support in these situations. To my mind, in many cases it's tantamount to turning a blind eye to buyer on seller fraud. eBay would say that the user agreement doesnt give them the power to intervene, but it's eBay's user agreement and they could easily amend it to give themseves that power. But the fact seems to be that eBay simply doesn't care.

As has been said, you may well have to consider taking legal action. If you do, do make sure that your solicitor reads eBay's legal agreement and money back guarantee policy, because it is by these that the terms and conditions of sales are  governed. Bluntly, it's a minefield.

To begin with, you don't appear to have responded the the money back guarantee case correctly.  You say that "the buyer never provided any details or address so that I could generate a return label". But all you needed to so was to purchase the prepaid return label through eBay. It would have been sent to the buyer electronically - and the preprinted address would have been your address, not the buyer's! If you prefered to arrange your own service, that option was made vailable to you in the money back guarantee policy. It was up to you to arrange it, and to contact eBay for any additional information you required.

Any departure from eBay's stated procedures regularly means that eBay refunds the buyer without the item having to be returned. You gave eBay the power in the user agreement to decide whether the item concerned had to be returned. And you also agreed to accept eBay's decisions.

I'm sorry if this sounds negative, but these are the realities you will have to consider if you consider going to law. You have to forget normal ideas about common sense and justice here. Transactions between members hare are governed by eBay's own, laberinthine terms and condirions. Many are hideously arbitrary and unfair and few members have any proper understanding of them. But remember that you have accepted and are bound by these rules, which I think may place difficulties in the way of any legal remedy. Good luck anyway!

[flamingo1975]

Today, for the first time in many weeks, someone from eBay actually read my message instead of sending an automated “copy-paste” reply.

I finally received a message from an eBay representative who confirmed that the system could not generate a return label for my case — and because of that, the system automatically closed the case in favour of the buyer due to the lack of a label.

That means I never had any real option to do anything — I couldn’t upload or send a label, and the buyer stopped responding completely after I proved that the photos he provided were not the same items I sold him.

The agent who replied admitted that this situation is clearly caused by the buyer’s fault and by the system limitation, not mine.

But now I have lost both the item and the money, and I have no idea what else I can do.

To me, this looks like a serious system error, and I’m asking for advice:

What can I do next if the case was closed automatically because no return label was generated by eBay’s system?

Has anyone experienced something similar, where the seller did everything correctly but still lost both the product and the payment?

[jckl1957]

Appeal - use the link in message 6.

I don't know how the sympathetic agent communicated with you and implied it was not your fault that no label was supplied, but that was your opportunity to say 'So what are Ebay going to do about it then?'

Use the messages from that conversation in your appeal.

[tobiasd4]

I'm not sure why CS said returns label couldn't be issued.

It is normally RM 2kg label.

So buyer would have to contact you to request  different label for type of item you sold.